


The Husband

by ShadeReilly34



Category: Black Jack (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, pedophilia accusations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 07:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16488314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeReilly34/pseuds/ShadeReilly34
Summary: One-shot. "I'm his wife" was a joke. A something dark and twisted joke, that extended over both like a wild and thorny honeysuckle. And Back Jack had let it grow, consciously and unconsciously. A reflection on his "relationship" with his beloved Pinoko. Spoilers from original manga.





	The Husband

**Author's Note:**

> Shade: This is perhaps the only Black Jack fanfic to do (I said maybe, hehe, you never know), I felt I had to get it out of my being before it rotted in my idea filing cabinet, already too crowded with prototypes.
> 
> We could say it's a Black Jack / Pinoko (JaPino for friends), but it may not be. Ambiguity is sometimes better than showing. Here you have a bit of both.
> 
> Disclaimer: Black Jack is the creation of the immortal Osamu Tezuka
> 
> Dedicated to Blanca Rosa. Because I owed you too much.

Nobody understood it. No, nobody _would_ understand.

It was strange, uncomfortable to see.

_"I didn’t know you had a daughter, Dr. Black Jack," a doctor had said after finishing a complicated craniotomy at a New Zealand hospital._

_"I'm not his daughter, I'm his wife."_

The face of the doctor's surprise at such an answer was replaced by stupor to see that it came precisely from the charming redhead girl who had entered the operating room hours before with them with a confidence that was _abnormal_ for someone of her age and, more surprisingly, she had assisted the renowned renegade surgeon in everything that he asked for, carrying out her work with disturbing efficiency. And… when have you seen a girl of apparent 6 years knowing _what_ is forceps or a scalpel or know how to perfectly use a blood drainage as if she was a surgical assistant or a CRNA (1) with several years of experience? It was surreal, almost insane. And hopefully that was what surprised him most, but it was the word " _wife_ " said with so much emphasis and security that it didn't sound at all like a joke... And what was worse: Black Jack did nothing to deny it. _Nothing_.

The doctor just nodded, hoping it was that: A joke. A something dark and twisted joke.

_"My apologies for that, ma'am, looks like you both are a lovely couple."_

Black Jack's expression was unfathomable.

**...**

From the moment she could speak correctly (well, at least enough), she had started using that way of treating him, being alone, being in public. And a long, long time ago, the scarred doctor had stopped trying to correct her or at least to make her stop saying that in public.

He just let that continue, even leaving the impressions of amazement and even displeasure in those who listened to that statement. And he was sure that when they left, that impression would follow.

For Black Jack, that was a _trifle_. If he would receive a yen for all the times he received unpleasant comments from his person, the pile would be higher than Mount Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower together. It had been a long time since insidious phrases and comments had slipped over him like water.

But in relation to Pinoko, that was equivalent to a skin rub with a paper or worse, with a scalpel. It doesn't really hurt you enough to cut you, but it hurt. It hurt a lot. But not so much because of what the people looking at them said, but for themselves, especially for her.

She certainly took the brunt of all this. And is not fair.

And she received it in different ways: Each one more _unpleasant_ than the other.

Walking in a densely populated place somewhere in South America to get to an appointment with a corrupt politician, at one point they were surrounded by a stampede of people going in the same direction. Quickly and with a natural gesture, Black Jack had taken her by the hand to avoid being separated. Not even five minutes had passed when they received comments of this kind:

_"You see that, that man with a horrid face is grabbing that pretty girl, will he be a kidnapper?"_

_"No, this is not right, what a horrible guy that he is! Who knows what he thinks about doing to that little girl?"_

_"Where will the mother of that girl be? How can she leave her alone with such a man?"_

_"Somebody call the police, that man is a pedophile!"_

And the scene would continue with Black Jack being dragged to the nearest police station, looking with despise down on the officer who would subject him to an annoying interrogation: Who he was. Who was that girl? What degree of kinship did they have of each other? What were both of them doing together? Where they were staying to inspect. If he had evidence that he was really the legal guardian of the little girl and it wasn't a cheap excuse to kidnap her and subdue her to God knows what depravations. If he really was a doctor (despite not having a license) and that wasn't a disguise for sexual exploitation or organ trafficking... And so, he went on until, eventually, seeing the face of grief and sadness on the face of the redhead for such humiliation, Black Jack would be _fed_ _up_ with everything and would take out a thick wad of cash to the surprised and eventually avid policemen in order to let them go. It _always_ worked, in fact.

And when that happened, he would mutter an apology and promise her an ice cream or some gift to make up for the bad time that she has passed.

Or when he thought about taking her out to dinner or just walking around the city or taking a pleasure trip that many times ended in a bloody medical case or emergency, the eyes of others would always be on them. The looks of amazement, of stupefaction, of horror, of _disapproval_. It was in those moments that he decides to pay the bill and leave the place or simply get away from there, not because they bothered him those things, but to get her away from them... And they had _good_ reasons to think that, Black Jack would think with bitterness: A man with an eccentric bicolor hair, with a scar on his face and dressed as if he was a Jack the Ripper or a Van Helsing taken out of a sort of Victorian England, holding her hand or been followed by an innocent girl of apparent six years of age with a beauty so delightfully adorable that she almost _looked_ like a _doll_ (Hehe, double unconscious sense here). They were a very unlikely pair and the contrast was shocking, even if the same society repeated that one shouldn't rely too much on appearances and _all_ that hypocritical shit.

...And still, in spite of all that, Pinoko kept insisting on going out with him, on accompanying him on his travels and medical appointments, even though Black Jack insisted in turn that no, that she would stay at home and wait for him like the good girl  she was, that he would bring something to her, whatever, but she won't accompany him.

That way she would be safe, for now. Of what could happen to her in his turbulent career as a clandestine doctor, that was his official excuse. Although it wasn't a lie either. She _would_ be safe from evil-speaking, for now too.

Right now, what was hearing in the old house was the sound of the waves crashing against the cliff, giving an interesting contrast to the long and fluid explanation of Bob Ross (2) painting precisely a beautiful seascape on his canvas. The afternoon passed with an almost absurd slowness, but it wasn't annoying. In fact, it was even necessary: They had had a _fucked-up_ case with a member of the Russian Duma which almost ended with problem with the Mafia. Black Jack, lounging on the ramshackle sofa, let out a sigh, wrapping the air in a pungent smell of tobacco; nevertheless, he made sure to expel the smoke as far as possible from the precious cargo he held in his arms that moment so that it wouldn't bother her.

Pinoko giggled. "I don’t know what you're worried about that, doctor, it's not like I don’t _smell_ it from here, you know?”

Black Jack watched her rose her head lazily on his chest where she had been so _happily_ curled up since the tv show began. "That's because you insist on being close to me when I smoke. Don't you know that being a passive smoker is as harmful as an active one?"

"Huh-hum," the redheaded girl muttered, burying her face in her shirt, rubbing languidly against it. "And still, Pinoko’s going to keep doing it. So, I took measurements." By reflex, Black Jack looked up where Pinoko had placed a stick of incense on a Chinese porcelain vase, wrapping the air in an intense smell of strawberries that almost caused the doctor felt dizzy on the first day, although he had eventually surrendered and accustomed on that, accepting it with a meekness so inhospitable to someone of his nature, as practically _everything_ related to Pinoko.

Sometimes he wondered if it was _still_ a good idea to keep her by his side.

Recounting their whole life together, it was more than _obvious_ that NO: Kidnappings, assaults and even assassination attempts _splattered_ the record of the life in common of Black Jack and Pinoko. The darkest moments had undoubtedly been when something happened that terribly affected the young redhead assistant. Black Jack _could_ swear before God (or whoever is the superior entity of humans) without a doubt that the moments where he had really feared was the possibility of Pinoko get tortured when he was kidnapped to elicit the location of his "treasure". Or much worse still, when he found her almost inert in a pool of blood and a bullet in her chest.

The logical and obviously sensible thing would be to send her away, with a couple who wanted to adopt her as their daughter (which didn't seem so difficult, knowing how beautiful and adorable (and apparently docile) that she was) and that they could give her all the affection and love that she offered that for him and that he, precisely, would be quite _unable_ to give to her in return.

But he knew it was impossible. Not only because he once tried and was unsuccessful (although deep down he was grateful because he could be a dead man), but also because, right now, he felt unable of giving her to anyone.

He felt unable to give it to someone after spending so many years together, accompanying him in and out of the operating room, assisting him in whatever he needed, guiding him in his decisions, questioning the morals and ethics of his actions, even in an emotional perspective; cheering their afternoons and evenings with her occurrences or games, enjoying the relative quietness of their turbulent lives with music, (Something shared by both Black Jack and Pinoko was the taste and skill for the piano), the oil painting programs or the brief nocturnal conversations... listening to him complain about some bureaucratic shit, understanding him when he was dying of rage when a patient is dead or when an injustice occurred.

Basically, being there for him. In the good and in the worst.

...As any marriage _would_ do.

Black Jack twisted his mouth at such _irony_ , while unconsciously (or perhaps not...) put an arm over the small waist of the girl and lazily tangled soft strands of red hair between his fingers: Pinoko _fit_ more like his wife in more aspects of what he could see or even admit. And no, he could never admit it.

He couldn't do it because life had cruelly taught him that by clinging too much to what you love most, if you have enemies, then they will use that against you. And unfortunately, many of what they wanted to fuck the doctor already knew that they had to do it taken advantage of his weak point: Her. That's why he had refused at first to establish bonds with her by rebuilding her, hoping that at the time of their separation it would not be so painful... But then everything had gone to shit, not only because of the rejection of her sister, but because it had happened the last thing that Black Jack had wanted and for which he had fought fiercely to avoid: Become so fond with her.

 For some strange and extraordinary reason, his scarred heart had been chained to hers. United by a tiny and practically unbreakable chain. For some reason, she occupied an important place in his being, when he would have always believed that only his mother, Dr. Honma and Takashi would occupy it. Nobody else. But she had arrived and taken her place, establishing herself as a beautiful wild flower in a dark pit. She arrived unannounced and he didn't request that, but he doesn't want to remove her away for nothing.

"Doc, what would you like to eat tonight?" he had gotten to hear the question of his little girl, who was looking at him with a lazy smile and her eyes half-closed with drowsiness, rubbing an eye in the process, containing a yawn "Goddammit, she's so cute" the renegade doctor thought without intending it, making an inhuman effort not to show his blush. "Damn and blessed be the hour that this teratoma came to me in the body of a girl and a woman's mind and soul." Finally, he made a crooked smile.

"Ochazuke," he said without thinking too much. Pinoko twisted the gesture, she was not a big fan of that dish, but she had set out to please him this day. She made an effort to get up (Definitely, his doctor's chest was a very nice place to rest, take a nap or just stay) and made a smile, retiring to the kitchen.

Black Jack saw her go away, as he got up and went to the balcony, finishing burning in his lungs the last burning ashes of his pipe, throwing them into the salty wind of the almost extinct afternoon. He stared at the swirling surf at his feet, thinking that this would be an interesting allegory to his current thoughts about Pinoko. Daughter, assistant... wife, what the hell was she?

Would it be nice to accept the "relationship" of an adult with a girl's body of who Black Jack was more than ten years older than her? Would not it be more prudent to stop all that?

No, it was not possible. Because it was late. Too late.

_"I didn't know you had a daughter, Dr. Black Jack"_

_"I'm not his daughter, I'm his wife,"_ she had answered without a hint of doubt or joke.

The other doctor stared at Black Jack obviously expecting a discredit to such an absurd claim. But nothing. Only silence. Only emerged and would emerge silence in response to the affirmation.

And as some say, silence _equals_ confession.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: 
> 
> (1) CRNA is the acronym for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, which would be a nurse trained in anesthesiology, who can assist physicians and surgeons in the operating room. Many times, CRNAs can act as doctors for different medical procedures, from surgical to therapeutic.  
> (2) Bob Ross (1942 - 1995) was a famous American painter and presenter. "The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross" was a popular oil painting program that was broadcast in the 80s.  
> According to the original manga, Black Jack is an admirer of Bob Ross and he likes the programs of oil painting.


End file.
